“Mephistopheles at the imperial court ”

Reactions to Rasputin’s death and his subsequent image in Slovenia

Abstract

In Slovenian memory, Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin (1872- 1916) was a man of tremendous influence on the last Russian imperial couple and the then Russian political and church life. During his lifetime, upon and after his death, Slovenians were reminded of the magical power of his persona but at the same time also of his licentious life and inclination to money and social power but also benevolence to the Russian peasant and the common man. He was seen as an opponent of the (world) war, but was also blamed for the decline of the Russian empire because of his lengthy interventions in the decision making. In Slovenia, it was the writer Vladimir Bartol who most immersed himself in the phenomenon of Rasputin. He saw Rasputin as an incarnation of the chaos in Russia before the Bolshevik revolution, as someone who had the suggestive powers of a Biblical prophet, an immense vital force and the confidence with which he almost reached the top position in the country. “This man had to know something about himself and the world, something unknown to most other mortals,” wrote Bartol. Bartol’s warning about the excessive aspect of Rasputin’s personality rounds up the profile of his otherwise negative image in Slovenia.